


This Is A Story About Wallpaper

by AstridContraMundum



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Gen, Oracle s07ep01, can be read either way, series 7 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22665376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum
Summary: Would Morse ever get to the original plaster, pristine and untouched, that lay below?Would anyone?
Relationships: Endeavour Morse & Ludo Talenti, Endeavour Morse/Ludo Talenti
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53





	This Is A Story About Wallpaper

**Author's Note:**

> The ficlet where the title is also a lie . . .

Morse climbed one rung higher on the stepladder and dug in, leaning all of his weight into it, scraping off yet another layer of old wallpaper.

Layer after layer—how many times had the place been redone? How many times had the old, marred walls been covered over? How much damage and discoloration lay beneath it all? Would he ever get to the original plaster, pristine and untouched, that lay below?

In some spots, particularly stubborn bits of paper remained glued fast to the wall, sticking to the paper beneath it in odd-shaped oases, and then there would be nothing else for it—nothing else for him to do but to pry at it with his fingers, to try to catch an edge under his nail, until his fingertips bled.

He frowned to himself and scrubbed harder still.

Of course, the manner in which they met was all too baroque: the pickpocket, the man on the bicycle.

He could almost hear his own voice speaking to him, from behind some shabby desk in a corner of his mind.

_“That’s not accident. That’s design.”_

And then there was, too, that painful pantomime of an introduction.

_“You’re …. Erm?”_

_“Morse.”_

_“Ah. Yes. Forgive me. English names.”_

Although, presumably, if the man had been in Britain long enough to speak as well as he did, he would have had time enough to become accustomed to English names. And, as English names went, his was not so very difficult—five letters, one syllable.

But then, as if to twist the knife, as if to make sure that Morse knew that if he was falling into this—this whatever it was—that it was all on him, that he would be the cause of his own undoing, Ludo used the same ploy again, twice in the span of two minutes.

_“You went to . . . ?” Ludo prompted._

_A pregnant pause, giving Morse ample time to hang himself._

_“Lonsdale.”_

Morse grimaced at the memory and scraped harder at the yellowing wallpaper so that shredded pieces fell like sheared feathers around him. The bare, original plaster had to be here somewhere underneath, buried, like Ben Nimmo, slowly dying, withering away somewhere under the surface.

He scraped and scraped again, so that he was almost pounding at the walls, pounding in time to the thumping of his own heart, a heart that thrashed beneath his ribs like a desperate bird in a cage of bones, a black crow in its death throes, dying for want of water and light.

And of course, it was all a lie. The man couldn’t even tell him what country he was from? It had been a long time, after all, since the war. Most borders had been quite stable for quite some time.

_“That’s not accident, that’s design.”_

Was he so very lonely? Was he so very desperate for someone to see him that he was willing to blink and look away?

Because the man had almost certainly never been to Oxford.

But, perhaps, it was nothing so very sinister. After all, the last person to have reached out to him, to have seemed to want to understand him, had lied about his pedigree, too.

_“I’m a Harvard man, myself, old man.”_

Morse tried to comfort himself with the thought, even though, it was also true, that Bixby had said such words quite differently—always with a trace of good-humor and light in the dark eyes, with a dazzle of a smile playing around his lips, as if to include him in the masquerade.

As if to say, _“You and I both know that Bruce is right, that I am a fraud.”_

_“But it’s all good fun, isn’t it? As the fellow said: You only get one go around the board.”_

With Bix, Morse had always felt as if his host was drawing him in, inviting him to be a part of the game. And it was a harmless game, a child’s game, really. A game of let’s pretend. Let’s turn back the clock, to the days before we wore the mask, to the days before we learned to bury ourselves behind layers and layers of wallpaper, to the days when we were young and believed that anything was possible.

Even magic.

Even love.

_“Just because it’s not real, doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful,” Violetta said, cradling an artificial rose in her long fingers._

Morse shook his head as if to clear his mind of the thought of her. Another fortnight of lies, no doubt, albeit lies of omission.

_"I told you."_

_"No questions."_

No questions.

When so often Morse had nothing but.

Because now, he realized—and he tilted his weight further, dug in harder, so that his heart was beating, not as bird, but even more arhythmically, like a cageful of battling rodents gnawing at the bars of his ribs, hell-bent on breaking free . . .

Because now, he realized, he was not a player in the game, but rather the object of it.

_“Incorruptible? Is that it?” Ludo said._

_“That’s right,” Morse replied._

_“Every man has his price,” Ludo said, and then he gave a half-laugh, a laugh that was not so much a laugh as a promise. “Every man.”_

_Ludo leaned back, considering him, his eyes on him and only on him, as if he were the center of his universe._

_“I shall make it my life’s business to find yours. And once I have found your weakness, I shall exploit it without mercy to my own ends.”_

_“And what is that?” Morse asked._

_Another smile, then, this one more genuine._

_“I shall think of something,” Ludo said._

Perhaps Morse should have taken heed of the warning there, of the warning sounded by that voice that dwelt somewhere in the corner of his mind, the one that wore a cheap suit and sat behind a shabby desk.

Perhaps he should not have stayed so late, lingering over another and then yet another bottle of wine.

But how could he do otherwise? How could he resist the chance to talk of music rather than murder, of life and art and love rather than corpses and evidence and exhibits and death?

How long had it been since he had talked to someone who seemed to hang on his every word, who seemed to care about what he had to say?

_“No questions,” Violetta said, putting a finger to his lips._

_“Not everything’s a crossword puzzle,” Thursday said, with a dismissive jerk of his head. “Sometimes, how everything looks is how it is.”_

Who else, really had ever offered to make it his life’s business to find out _anything_ about him? Anything at all, of what lay beneath?

Was Morse really so desperate for someone, anyone, to reach him, to find him beneath all of the layers and layers of old and yellowing . . .

Morse startled and turned, then, at the sound of the doorbell.

It could only be work, he supposed. Jim Strange perhaps, come by to make some complaint to him or another.

Morse went down the ladder and opened the door.

And there he was—Ludo—standing right on the threshold, holding a bottle of wine as if in offering.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he said.

Almost assuredly another lie.

But Morse stepped back, allowing him in.

Of course he did.

Was there every any doubt?

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, Morse. I can't bear to look.


End file.
